Abstract
This article presents an empirical study about the students’ perspectives on bilingual sections in Compulsory Secondary Education (CSE) in the Community of Madrid, Spain. Its aim is to highlight the students’ opinions and their level of satisfaction of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in this monolingual setting. The results extrapolate from the analysis of questionnaires and focus groups interviews. These two methods of research gave excellent opportunities for 754 bilingual participants in 18 bilingual schools (schools are public, charter, and private ones from both rural and urban areas) to expose their opinions and attitudes about the program. Thus, the article outlines the main findings in relation to the following factors: students’ use, competence and development of English in class; methodology; materials and resources; evaluation; teachers’ use, competence and development of English in class; mobility; improvement and motivation towards learning English; teacher training and mobility; and finally, overall appraisal of bilingual sections.
Highlights
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in language learning, because “the role of language in a society is built into its structures to such a degree that it is a fundamental variable in that society” (González, 2008, p. 293)
Information obtained from interviews complemented the data collected through questionnaires and allow drawing a complete picture of how Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is functioning in this context
In terms of students’ use, competence, and development of English in class, the majority of students state that they either agree or strongly agree with all the items, except items 4 and 11, with which, contrarily, a considerable percentage of students disagree; almost half of the students think that their mother tongue (Spanish) has not improved due to their enrolment and their participation in the bilingual program, and nearly the same percentage of the students do not welcome the use of more English in the bilingual class. This finding is supported by Lasagabaster & Doiz’s (2016, p. 12) results. They have documented that “as the younger students progress in their CLIL instruction, the importance they attached to these language aspects decreased slightly, they were still deemed to be relevant.”
Summary
There has been an increasing interest in language learning, because “the role of language in a society is built into its structures to such a degree that it is a fundamental variable in that society” (González, 2008, p. 293). Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is “a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of content and language” It has been introduced into the educational systems throughout the world, even though “the idea of teaching subject matters through more than one language is not new” It has developed into an innovative way for education to respond to the challenges of globalization and to society’s demands for interculturality and intercommunication
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